Internet radio stations in Music tab

[denz 501]

This has been reported in emby theatre forum by another user since it is not available it should be a future request. In WMC it is slightly complicated you create two files with the link to your radio station a bit like pls files. 

 

This is much better than tunein, tunein has too many cards and options this way only the stations you listen to will be listed there. With this there is no external app everything plays directly in WMC and you control it by remote.

 

 

This is WMC mcl file

 

<application  name="Narodni Radio "  
 url="Narodni Radio .htm"    
 startimage="Narodni Radio .jpg"   
 thumbnailimage="Narodni Radio .jpg"   
 description="Narodni Radio "    
 category="1"     
 companyname="">    
 <capabilitiesrequired  directx="false"  
    audio="true"     
    video="false"     
    intensiverendering="false"   
    console="false"    
    cdburning="false"    
 />     
</application>  

 

Then corresponding htm file

 

<script>       
function IsMCEEnabled()     
{        
return true;      
}        
window.external.MediaCenter.PlayMedia(1, "http://s7.iqstreaming.com:9498");  
window.external.MediaCenter.Experience.GoToFullScreen()   
window.external.MediaCenter.CloseApplication();  
</SCRIPT>

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Luke 42078]

so you basically have to supply the content?

[denz 501]

Yes that is correct you have to find the internet station link and create that file. It is not something that you can generally do with the remote, the WMC way is too complicated than it should be.  As Emby has a web client I think if the web page is designed properly a beginner could set up their favourite internet stations with relative ease.

 

A  web page would just need these details and few help lines for a beginner.

 

Name: Test Internet Station

 

URL Link: http://

 

Image:   Click to attach image.

[skoog 1]

Bump...

I would like this to.

I would be perfect to add your own webradio that you listen to , and have everything at one place.

Then you can have all your movies , music , audiobooks and webradio at the same place.

But i guess nothing came from this since its 6 years old topic.

But maybe now... 

[porkbone 47]

I have this now with my server. I created a new music library called Radio Stations and pointed it at the folder I setup with links to a handful of college radio station with a live feed on their website. I find the m3u8 feed address and add that to text file, name it the call sign of the station and save it as a strm file. I'll then find their station logo and download that, rename it to match the strm file and put them all together in the Radio Stations folder. Scanned it and it works.

It's not perfect, but it does work remotely

I hope that helps you or someone...

 

[skept 9]

On 8/4/2022 at 10:19 AM, porkbone said:

...

It's not perfect, but it does work remotely

I hope that helps you or someone...

Thank you for mentioning this method.

I was using the IPTV plugin but it did not work with Carplay.

Using this method I was able to setup a playlist and now can use Carplay to switch between channels using my steering wheel.

Thank you!!

[maxiniedermeier 17]

Hi

Because TuneIn plugin doesn't work as it should most of the time

I've just started playing around a bit with the strm files mentioned above and find that it works pretty well.

I discovered a few things

- At the moment I have created a new music library and set the sort order to "Exact" so that I have separate folders for Artist/Stations, Album(s)/Stream(s). Some stations have more than one. So I thought it would be nice if there was a separate library type for web radio that displays the correct name in the top bar.

- If there is a separate library type, you might be able to enable the client app to buffer, say, 15 minutes (or perhaps configurable) of the stream so you can rewind some time

- At the moment I have saved the images of the "Logo" stream as "folder.jpg" as described in the media preparation list, but when I add a new stream it shows up but the song/stream only then automatically updates the image once played.

- I was impressed by how “well” it worked and tried it out in the car on the next trip. Everything was working fine until a network change occurred and the stream stopped and never played again. Additionally, the app crashed after some time after the stream stopped.

Maybe there is still some time to implement the features that would make the app more universal. "One for all"

PS: The TuneIn plugin could potentially benefit from some features. I probably wouldn't use it since I only listen to some radio stations that I want to add manually.

[maxiniedermeier 17]

I had a few more ideas that would also be very nice

Add the function to read out the now playing etc information of the current stream (if available) and display it where the song name should normally be

If there was a separate library you could combine the song and album lines into one in the “Now Playing” screen and swap albums into artists: “Artist – Song”

So if there is information about the current playback, it looks like this

"Now running...

Artist – song”     or something

Maybe someone is interested and this might get a little attention

[nospotify 184]

On 8/4/2022 at 7:19 AM, porkbone said:

I have this now with my server. I created a new music library called Radio Stations and pointed it at the folder I setup with links to a handful of college radio station with a live feed on their website. I find the m3u8 feed address and add that to text file, name it the call sign of the station and save it as a strm file. I'll then find their station logo and download that, rename it to match the strm file and put them all together in the Radio Stations folder. Scanned it and it works.

It's not perfect, but it does work remotely

I hope that helps you or someone...

 

Looks like you have great taste in Internet radio stations - comfy sharing that file you created so others could use (or use it as a model and modify it) too?

[maxiniedermeier 17]

Sure

Ive just created a new "Music" Library and set the structure setting to perfect so it sorts it

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-RptlkwwJ-81-74LBqw50kIBBoK86A0Y?usp=sharing

these are some files and basically the sorting with the folders

[nospotify 184]

@maxiniedermeierThis is fantastic. I'm now working on a similar set of some interesting U.S. radio stations with streams and will post it here for others, too.

[maxiniedermeier 17]

As mentioned above maybe sometime there could be a seperate Web Radio Library.

Shouldnt be that hard just change some names and make it a little bit custom too "Top Header Display"

[porkbone 47]

@maxiniedermeier  Thank you for the great list!  I'll put a link to mine up in a bit

[maxiniedermeier 17]

Hi

I just wanted to ask if it would be possible to create an additional library option, or what the current status is regarding other alternatives. I read another thread about editing the "title bar" in the music library. Perhaps this could be applied to other libraries (radio stations) to change or hide the corresponding titles.

[maxiniedermeier 17]

Now that I think about it, it would probably be very beneficial for advanced users with different library structures and for possibly even more media types in the future if one could configure the title (names) in relation to the respective id3 tags, file name, folder name/structure or similar and, for example, store the previous setup as the default.

[Luke 42078]

Have you tried using the audio books content type? That will probably be better than music.

[maxiniedermeier 17]

Just tried it..

it's just not as convenient.

The Stations (Album Artist) Tab is missing

Also the Station (Artist) Detail View with all the Streams (Songs) is missing which i used to select the one i would like to listen.

The Album view would not be needed in my opinion, just the top row with the most played and a complete list below. (If there would be an option for a Web Radio Library) Also the composers Tab.

With the Audibook library i only get the Recommendations Tab and the Audiobook (Album) tab.

[Luke 42078]

On 5/22/2025 at 3:24 PM, maxiniedermeier said:

Just tried it..

it's just not as convenient.

The Stations (Album Artist) Tab is missing

Also the Station (Artist) Detail View with all the Streams (Songs) is missing which i used to select the one i would like to listen.

The Album view would not be needed in my opinion, just the top row with the most played and a complete list below. (If there would be an option for a Web Radio Library) Also the composers Tab.

With the Audibook library i only get the Recommendations Tab and the Audiobook (Album) tab.

You should be getting an Authors tab. Are your audio files tagged with Artist values?

[hispeed 9]

@Luke

I'm also a little bit stuck here so. I switched completly to emby and shutted down my audiiostation from Synology. So what do you think about a own library for radio?

Favorites:

I'm listening right now via favorites. Also interesting when I click on favorites it takes very long time to load but only favorites is slow it takes 3-4 seconds. All other menus work much faster.

Carplay Apple and Android:

Which image will be sent does that work? At the moment i set the image in emby but dies does only work emby internal. I see that maxniedermeier made for every station a folder and in the folder he has the image.

At the moment I have it like this:

I d

I don't want to spend to much time in it if a better solution is on the way.

[Luke 42078]

It’s certainly possible but it means all of our apps have to build new user interfaces for a new library type. It’s easier to make music and audio books more flexible so that you can choose one of the two.

 Regarding the image, can you please show an example of what you mean? Thanks.

[hispeed 9]

When I connect to Android Car then this image is not displayed in the car. I don't know if this is possible to show the image on Android / Apple Car?

I added this image as shown on the image. The image is not a .png and not transparent that's why it looks ugly with the background.

Also when i play it in the browser:

Edited September 6, 2025 by hispeed

[maxiniedermeier 17]

On 9/6/2025 at 1:28 AM, Luke said:

It’s certainly possible but it means all of our apps have to build new user interfaces for a new library type. It’s easier to make music and audio books more flexible so that you can choose one of the two.

 Regarding the image, can you please show an example of what you mean? 

For the start, it would be a great help if the audio library type could simply be copied and some name changes made within the library. The Online Media Info Scrabbers would also be unnecessary.

The Music Library would also be suitable for library sorting.

Additional features such as displaying radio text, possibly with an image if available, or an adjustable playback buffer of at least 15 minutes would also be easier to implement in the 'hopefully near' future, I think.

[Luke 42078]

1 hour ago, maxiniedermeier said:

For the start, it would be a great help if the audio library type could simply be copied and some name changes made within the library. The Online Media Info Scrabbers would also be unnecessary.

The Music Library would also be suitable for library sorting.

Additional features such as displaying radio text, possibly with an image if available, or an adjustable playback buffer of at least 15 minutes would also be easier to implement in the 'hopefully near' future, I think.

True, but you can also setup a music library, disable the fetchers, and then you get just about all of that except for the "radio" text.

[softworkz 5066]

Hello everyone,

first, let me acknowledge that online radio has been a long-standing gap in Emby. 
Whenever a solution was available, it was either half-baked or limited in various ways or both, or depending on a service which wasn't alive for long etc.

I very much welcome your initiative, so please don't hate me when I'm saying that this is not a suitable approach. For once, a specific library type isn't needed at all and secondly - even more important: An approach using strm files is not useful for "the masses" of Emby users, and I want to explain why:

There's no easy way to share a curated collection of radio stations when it is based on strm files in a folder structure. It appears to make sense for yourself, being the "curator", but most others do not want to do this and just want to have a working solution.
A one-time copy of strm files is not much useful, because stations and their URLs are frequently changing and when there's no simple way for staying up to date, the whole effort is pointless, similar like some of the solutions we had earlier already.

But now there's a game changer:

 

With the WebStreams plugin, it is possible to create a single (m3u) file which can contain the data for all the radio stations you want in that list without needing any extra files and with the ability for custom field mappings, two-level grouping, logo, stream, name and some other fields for display in Emby server without needing a new library type.

There's even an existing like of radio stations which gets update daily from the Wikidata site - please see here: Radio Stations: Wikidatak
When you add this as a source to Emby Server, you don't even need to maintain your own m3u or rss list: When you want to add a radio station, you can just add it to the Wikidata website (part of Wikipedia), and one day later, it will appear in your Emby Server...

And still of course, you can build and publish your radio list as a single file and share it with others easily and in a way that they're always up to date.

[hispeed 9]

@softworkz

I'm in, as soon as this on the stable version available and I will update the wikidatabase. Looks a little bit strange how to manage the wiki and add my stream url's probably I need to read a little bit more at the moment i didn't get it but I only had now 5 minutes to look at it ;).

I can provide my list mainly from Switzerland radio stations 66 stream url's all updated.